As more enterprises look to streamline technology stacks and accomplish more with less, vendors and OEMs are finding themselves in an evolving market focused on bringing integrated solutions to customers through partners.
We spoke with Scott Strubel, head of Americas partner sales at Smartsheet, about how market trends influence the ways vendors work with partner organizations.
Why Smartsheet is doubling down on partners in enterprise expansion
Strubel told Channel Insider that Smartsheet works with over 700 partners, including VARs, system integrators, and distributors, to bring its workflow process management platform to enterprise customers in a variety of verticals.
“Our partners do great work with all of the people they have in their teams to listen to customer challenges and identify opportunities where we can close deals because we solve those challenges,” said Strubel. “We have relationships with organizations that know Smartsheet very well and help take us into specific verticals.”
Strubel added that those partners are crucial to Smartsheet’s ability to grow in specific geographies where it does not maintain internal sales professionals.
“Our partners are going to have 20 or 30 times the amount of coverage in geographic regions than I could ever attempt to hire internally. Same with distribution partnerships: they provide scale that doesn’t make sense for us to build internally,” he continued.
How enablement and coverage gaps are reshaping partner value
Strubel has spent decades working with channel partners worldwide for several technology vendors.
He said one of the most important components of Smartsheet’s approach to partners is how the company enables those partners to understand the platform and how it solves business problems.
“Partner enablement is crucial to us. Partners can upsell and cross-sell very well for us, especially in the large enterprise space, where we might already sell into one division or business unit,” Strubel said. “We can work with that partner to expand into other units within the same organization.”
To Strubel, the conversations in the market about AI enablement and how his teams can leverage the technology to accelerate partnerships are also a growth opportunity this year.
“Helping our partners in turn help their customers bring the power of AI into their organizations is just very exciting to me,” Strubel said.
Why platform consolidation is redefining OEM strategy
As we’ve covered before on Channel Insider, market demand has shifted most enterprises away from a complex array of point solutions and towards platform experiences that streamline multiple capabilities in a single view.
“Customers are now making platform-based decisions, and they need solutions that integrate with the other components of their business,” Strubel said.
“This is definitely an evolution for tech OEMs and all of us as vendors to meet the customers’ ability and desire to adopt new technologies,” he continued.
In 2026, ecosystem relationships matter more than ever
In the channel, technology has changed significantly. To many, Strubel included, one thing has remained the same: people.
“A whole lot has changed in the B2B software space, but the thing that hasn’t changed is the importance of partnerships and relationships,” said Strubel.
As enterprises head into 2026 looking to simplify technology stacks without sacrificing innovation, vendors will increasingly rely on partners to deliver integrated, outcome-driven solutions at scale.
For Smartsheet, that means enabling an ecosystem where platform interoperability, geographic reach, and AI-driven value creation reinforce one another.
In a market defined by consolidation and complexity reduction, Strubel said success will hinge less on individual products and more on the strength of the relationships that bring those platforms together.